Underground Revolution

Elven Song

Fifteen Years Later:

Resmaray softly hums a mysterious tune that Morte had never taught her, and she was always puzzled about about it's origin and how she came to know such a wonderful rhythm. The ideal of not being aloud to hum it in town only makes her that much more curious. Still, she only hums the melody while bathing up top the falls, where the rushing water can conceal her song. 

Standing under the water she lets it wash down her body as she leans against the summit. Watching the foggy blue water turn to warm auburn, Morte has conformed the color from her hair fades before reaching the bottom of the falls. 

Reaching for the bottle of specially formulated shampoo, that utilized slippery elm bark and beetroot to naturally color her hair. Resmaray made this concoction herself after years of Morte using animal blood to color her reflective silver hair. Lathering her hair before she slides down the wall sitting, watching as dawn becomes light in the horizon. 

Over the years the girl has learned to memorize their village and when he finally trusted her to go on her own, she learned the times women bathed and when the men bathed. Finding women are allowed to bathe from sunrise to evening around supper time when men get done with their labor work. So, the young girl would leave early in the morning from their little cabin in the woods to make the climb to her spot towards the top of the waterfall where nobody else could see her.

For two years now she has left all her bathing essentials in the cave so she didn't have to bring them back and forth every day. It takes her thirty minutes to bathe as she lets the color sit in her hair. She would either clean her body or do a close shave with a blade she brought from the market outside of their village. Sometimes she would check the growth of her ears but today luckily, they were still soft and rounded.

Remembering the first time he snipped her ears at an age she could remember the brutal burning sensation when he would use a hot blade to seal them. Doing so was to be sure they were perfectly round- the girl told him never again, but her genes have other plans and grow sharper every several months. With a towel wrapped around her jaw it ties behind her ears. The girl would bend in front of the fire, squinting her eyes shut waiting. Over the last several years she has learned to fight the pain, but it still gives her chills down her spine when the heat touches her and the snipping has become easy.

The girl has heard the town folk talk of elves but never in a positive way. Devils in human flesh are how they were known, especially from people visiting from the larger towns, but from what Morte has told her they sound extraordinarily beautiful. The man has not told her lies but never went straight into the truth. Simply put he has told her if other humans saw her pointed ears, they'd get the wrong idea about her so she obeyed. Though it always made the girl wonder if her hair and ear were that of an elf, she bit her tongue and kept it for her imagination. The ideas gave her the most wonderful dreams helping her to sleep however.

Rinsing her hair, the girl pats herself dry changing into a long thick white fabric dress hanging her towel over a small stick rack she made for it to dry. The young girl walks out of the damp cave onto the wooden path looking across the village in the distance. A large man-made but still breathtaking wall separating the waterfall and pool below so nobody could evade each other's privacy. Outside that wall is a brick path lined with warm candle-lit lanterns hanging from trees and homes or shops lining either side. The end of the path turns into the forest line where a thin path leads to Morte's and her cabin. Home.

Walking down the slippery slope the girl stops for a moment waiting for her feet to dry before she slips on her sandals. Though she rather walks barefooted she had gotten teased by other girls so she bought herself the prettiest sandals gold could buy her. The girls didn't laugh after that as the boys in the village had always taken a liking to her too. The winter in their village is brutal but so is the hot sticky summer, though she doesn't mind them as much as she minds the snow. Snow isn't for her and she isn't allowed out as much as her special shampoo becomes hard to make.